The Slipping Never Announces Itself

I’ve let my attention slip away many times, assuring myself that I’d simply gather it again whenever the moment seemed more conducive to my complete presence,
I’ve let my attention slip away many times, and not noticed the moment because the slipping is never dramatic and never announces itself before it leaves,
I’ve let my attention slip away many times, and filled the space as it left with smaller and easier things that asked nothing of me and gave me just enough to still showing up,
Do I genuinely understand what I’ve missed during the days I was physically present but absent elsewhere, does this lack of knowledge or simply diminish the impact of absence,
I’ve let my attention slip away many times, so habitually and for so long that I am no longer sure which version of the moment I am actually inside when I am standing in it...

I have mistaken constant motion for progress and called it ambition, when the more honest word for it is avoidance,
I have built habits of half-attention so slowly and that I did not feel them forming and now they feel more like my natural state than the focus I keep promising to return to,
I have spent whole hours piecing together fragments of a dozen different things, yet I end up exhausted at the end of the day, feeling like I’ve never truly been anywhere
When I say I was working today, what is the honest percentage of that time when the most profound and essential part of me was genuinely present, not just physically present,
I have built the unconscious interruption into my days and then wondered at the end of each one why the most important work never quite made it all the way through...

I have watched the signal come and then left it waiting while I completed a smaller, more urgent, and manageable task at the time,
I have watched the signal come and picked up my phone instead and told myself I would be back in a minute and returned to find what was there had changed in my absence
I have watched the signal come and not trusted it enough to stop everything else and turn toward it the way it needed me to turn and give it the full weight of my undivided self,
How many times have I arrived at a place, only to quietly leave again because I was too engrossed in other tasks to open the door in it’s perfect timing,
I have watched the signal come and go back to the noise and lived for years inside the low hum of not quite paying the kind of attention that changes what is possible...

I have confused being busy with being present and let the busyness stand in for the kind of attention that actually produces the thing I thought I am here to make,
I have confused motion for depth and convinced myself that the motion alone was sufficient evidence that I was engaged in genuine work, rather than merely circling around,
I’ve confused the open tab, the plan, the research, the next step, and giving everything I have to the one thing that most needs it from me,
Is the life I am living right now a life of genuine attention or a life of organized avoidance wearing the costume of productivity, forward motion, and discipline,
I’ve been confused for so long between being busy and being present that it’s become one of the most quietly important things I’m still trying to learn how to feel, I’m trying to find depth while sincerity notices what’s truly here…

Watchwords:
The slipping never announces itself before leaving,
Built whole hours out of a dozen half things,
The signal came and I picked up my phone,
The door I didn't open in time for it,
Organized avoidance wearing the costume of productivity